What's in the gallery?
We dissolve stuck and rewrite patterns. We apply radical playfulness to life (when we feel like it!), embarking on internal adventures (credo of Safety First). We have a fake band called Solved By Cake. We build invisible sanctuaries, invent words and worlds, breathe awe and wonder.
We are not impressed by monsters. Except when we are. We explore the connections between internal territories and surrounding environment to learn what marvelously supportive delicious space feels like, and how to take exquisite care of ourselves. We transform things.* We glow wild.**
* For example: Desire, fear, worry, pain-and-trauma, boundaries, that problematic word which rhymes with flaweductivity.
** Fair warning: Self-fluency has been known to lead to extremely subversive behavior, including treasuring yourself unconditionally, unapologetically taking up space, experiencing outrageously improbable levels of self-acceptance, and general rejoicing in aliveness.
What's in the gallery?
We dissolve stuck and rewrite patterns. We apply radical playfulness to life (when we feel like it!), embarking on internal adventures (credo of Safety First). We have a fake band called Solved By Cake. We build invisible sanctuaries, invent words and worlds, breathe awe and wonder.
We are not impressed by monsters. Except when we are. We explore the connections between internal territories and surrounding environment to learn what marvelously supportive delicious space feels like, and how to take exquisite care of ourselves. We transform things.* We glow wild.**
* For example: Desire, fear, worry, pain-and-trauma, boundaries, that problematic word which rhymes with flaweductivity.
** Fair warning: Self-fluency has been known to lead to extremely subversive behavior, including treasuring yourself unconditionally, unapologetically taking up space, experiencing outrageously improbable levels of self-acceptance, and general rejoicing in aliveness.
When you need support and aren’t getting it
Huge theme in my inbox lately.
You want support. You need support. And it’s just not showing up. We touched on this yesterday with the whole “how come my friends don’t comment on my blog” phenomenon.
And a number of Procrastination Dissolve-o-matic users have written saying that the techniques themselves are doing wonders … but what do you do when you start encountering criticism from the people in your life who are supposed to be supporting you in this process?
Plus it seems like my coaching clients are also all dealing with this right now in one form or another, though often the support they need (and aren’t getting) is actually from themselves.
Which reminds me: there’s a missing concept to deal with if we want to get any clarity around this stuff.
Useful concept of the day: internal vs external.
There are two ways we get support. Or anything, for that matter.
We have internal resources (thoughts, emotions, strengths, energy, ideas, epiphanies, concepts, reassurances, trust) …
… and we also have external resources (people we know, experts, authorities, information, even a higher power — if you believe in one — could be considered an external resource).
There’s probably a whole book just on this, but for now the point is that while there are many different forms the support we crave could take, they basically fall into two different categories — two main types of support that we can access.
The fastest way to get support when you’re needing it.
Don’t hit me. This concept is deceptively simple. As in, not simple at all. It just sounds like it is.
You gotta ask.
When you need support — and you’re not getting it — the most important thing you can do is ask for it.
And there are two places to ask. You either go inside and start asking your internal resources for support. Or you turn outside to ask your external resources for support.
Actually, ideally you do both. But they work a bit differently.
Argh. Stop. Let’s have an example
Because otherwise I’ll start geeking out on theory, with no obvious connections to actually applying this stuff in real life.
One of my readers wrote to me recently about this enormous fight she and her husband had.
Background: She recently bought the Procrastination Dissolve-o-Matic and has been applying stuff like crazy.
In fact, she had three days in a row of big, impressive accomplishments and — even more impressive — had actually been allowing herself to be impressed by them, rather than falling into her old pattern of automatically dismissing anything she did as worthless and not good enough. Huge, right? I know!
She wrote:
The fight was about his idea that I’m “not getting enough done”. He’s a very Results Oriented Guy, and currently sees the things I’m celebrating getting done as things I “should be doing anyway.”
Yeah, that does kind of suck. Sigh. Everyone send this woman a mental hug-offer right this second.
But back to the example. Here we have someone who is feeling frustrated and hurt because she needs some more support and encouragement in her life and she’s not getting it.
She’s noticed how she’s feeling. She’s recognized hurt and sadness and anger.
She’s identified what she’s needing (support, encouragement and positive motivation).
Now it’s time to ask.
The two parts to going ahead and asking for what you need.
Obviously the art of the ask is not something that’s easy for most of us. That’s why you need to start with internal asking before you go ahead to the external side of things.
This asking bit is a two-part process:
1. You start with asking yourself.
That’s the internal. Asking yourself for the ability to receive support. Asking yourself if it’s possible to become more open to receiving different kinds of support — and in different places.
Asking yourself if there are any internal limiting beliefs that are keeping you from getting support. Like, maybe you think you’re not deserving of it. Or maybe you think it wouldn’t help anyway because you’ll just mess everything up anyway. Stuff like that.
Ask yourself what it would feel like to be someone who has as much support as she (or he) needs. What would it feel like to be someone who can feel okay with asking for help?
2. And then you can practice the external kind of asking.
This means finding the people who are most likely to be supportive. And preparing yourself to have better communication with the people who aren’t generally supportive of you.
The best way to ask for support is to use Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication method — simple, but very powerful. You state your feeling and your need, and then ask for that need to be met.
For example, the woman who wrote to me might try saying something like this:
When I have a lot to do I feel really tense because I put a lot of pressure on myself to get things done right. And when I feel tense, I go into a state of internal resistance where I’m totally paralyzed and actually get less done.
When you say that I’m not getting enough done, I feel sad and I also go into this tense, paralysis thing.
So even though I know you’re trying to help me and I appreciate that, what’s happening for me is that it’s triggering some unhealthy patterns.
Right now I’m trying to get more things done, and to do this I’m trying to actively bring more support and encouragement into my life.
What I really need from you is more support and encouragement. It would be helpful for me if you would give me a few weeks to work on being able to get more done. I would really like to feel safe and supported, knowing that I’m going to be getting positive reinforcement from you with this.
Is that something you can do? It would help me feel a lot safer working on these patterns that I’m trying to change.
A few things to remember with asking
For heaven’s sake, be SPECIFIC.
No one can possibly know how to give you support if you don’t tell them. That’s true for your internal resources as well.
You don’t just want to ask for support and encouragement in general. Tell people what they can do to help you. Ask yourself what that kind of help would look like, sound like, and feel like.
It’s not about demanding anything. You’re just asking.
You either get it or you don’t. This is no time to pitch a fit because you think you deserve x, y and z. Sometimes people cannot give you what you need.
They have their own stuff. They’re blocked in their own ways. Sometimes it doesn’t happen. It doesn’t necessarily mean they’re bad people or they don’t love you. Just that right now they can’t give you what you need.
If you can’t get it from the person you want to get it from, you get it from yourself. If you can’t get it from yourself, you ask yourself if you can get better at receiving it.
And then you go out and find the people who can give it to you right now.
Surround yourself with people who adore you madly.
You need support and encouragement and motivation in your life. Find people who are going to give it to you. And give it to them. And give it to yourself.
You don’t always get what you ask for.
That’s why you have the inside stuff. That’s what the internal resources are for.
Sometimes you’ll ask for support and you won’t get it in the form you want it in. Or at all. But you can always turn inward and ask for it there. You can always ask for it in your heart.
You can always practice getting better at being that loving, supportive friend to yourself. Sometimes this will be a pain. Sometimes you won’t feel like it. Sometimes you just won’t be able to. But hey, we’re working on it, right?
One last thing about support
Yes, this whole process of getting ready to receive support is hard and frustrating. For me and for everyone I know. And oof oof oof, it’s even harder when the people around you don’t get how hard it is!
This is big stuff. Big, crazy topic. We’re working with really old, very hurt patterns here, so it makes sense that you’d feel uncomfortable asking. Asking for support is huge. Huge.
Even thinking about it is a pretty big deal. So no need to pressure yourself. It’s true that the support you need may sometimes be hard to access, but it’s also true that it will be there when you ask for it.
Ask Havi #11: the “jealousy meets fertility?” edition
Don’t ask about the title. Seriously. I don’t even know what’s going on today. It should really just be called the “random” edition.
Anyway. Two Ask Havi bits today. One relates to our blogging therapy series on taking the scary out of blogging.
And the other one kinda has to do with Non-Sucky Yoga Month … and is also the very first Ask Havi question that I’ve needed to farm out to a guest expert.
Shall we? Yallah.
First question: How come my friends don’t visit my blog?
This one was from Juliet who asked in the comments section of the “Why even bother bloggingwhen other people are doing it better?” post.
Hi Havi. Somewhere on your site I recall you saying that your friends don’t read your blog.
If you don’t mind sharing, how do you feel about that? And why do you think that is?
I know that none of my friends are particularly interested in even venturing near my blog to see what it’s all about. It hurts, I have to admit.
Either they have looked, and they don’t know what to say, or they haven’t…because they aren’t interested? Maybe jealous that I have found something I enjoy? (There have been other signs of the latter).
Okay. One thing at a time.
The weird truth is that I actually feel okay with my friends not reading my blog. Well, most of the time.
But I know enough people who get really annoyed about this phenomenon — and it is a phenomenon — that I get that it’s a big deal. And it’s definitely something I’ve given some thought to.
Here’s my take on it.
People don’t look.
They don’t look and they don’t want to look. Not because they aren’t interested, but because they’re scared. Scared? Well, anxious.
Maybe they won’t like what you’re up to, and then they’ll have to tell you (awkward and uncomfortable). Or lie to you (awkward and uncomfortable). Or pretend it never happened (awkward and uncomfortable).
Actually there are all sorts of things for them to be afraid of. For example?
Maybe they’ll discover that you’ve changed — and in ways that they don’t like.
Maybe they won’t like your online persona. Maybe it’s weird for them to see you as an expert in something and it feels like they’re losing you to this other, new, distant person.
Maybe they’ll get the sense you’re trying to sell them something and they’ll end up feeling uncomfortable.
There are all sorts of things that could happen theoretically … and any one of these could be enough to keep your friends away from your website.
My friends — the ones I’ve had for a long time — tend to miss the days when I partied like a rockstar. Sure they know I’m a freaky yoga chick and a successful businesswoman … but they don’t want to uncover stuff that might make them not want to be friends with me anymore.
It’s fear of losing someone you care about. I can identify with that.
Are they wrong? Yeah, probably. But I don’t think I can change their minds. Eventually they’ll show up. Or not. If and when the time is right.
The jealousy thing
You brought it up. So it probably didn’t come out of nowhere. And I have to say that it’s a real thing.
In fact, this is something anyone who wants to be successful is going to have to deal with because some people will be jealous. It’s no fun, but it can happen.
We talked about this quite a bit in the fear of success portion of the non-icky self-promotion course.
Jealousy happens. I have many friends who’ve had very different life experiences and made very different life choices than mine.
Like, they got married and got “real” jobs and had kids. Well, probably more of them are lesbian performance artists who live in squats. Which — weirdly — I identify with more.
But anyway, among all these friends, some are really proud of me and yes, some of them are jealous.
That I have my own business that’s totally successful. That I have a six week waiting list for seeing clients. That I can pick up and fly to Germany to teach at the Berlin Yoga Festival if and when I feel like it. That I make my own hours and do work that I love and just generally have a lot more freedom in my life than they feel that they do in theirs.
So yeah, jealousy can also be a reason. I wish it didn’t happen but it does.
Neither of these reasons really matters.
I’m not saying it doesn’t hurt because of course it does. It’s just that it’s not about you. It’s about them.
The only part that has to do with you is your reaction to it.
My way of dealing with it has been making new friends — online friends who completely get what I do and support the hell out of it — and keeping old friends for talking about other things that don’t necessarily have as much to do with what I’m doing right now.
Those friends don’t hang out here, and I can live with that.
The other thing to remember is that not all friendships are forever. Some are strong enough to work through stuff like this. And some aren’t.
Sometimes we need to let go of some old ties that aren’t supporting us anymore. When it comes to the jealousy thing, I don’t have a lot of patience for it. I don’t need that kind of energy in my life.
But it were someone really, really special to me I’d do the work to talk it out and see if we could work through that.
My suggestions …
- Find online friends who think the stuff you do is awesome.
- Let your offline friends be just that. Hang out with them in real life and do real life stuff. They’ll either come around or they won’t.
- Take a break from the people who aren’t in a position where they can be supportive and loving to you right now. Because you need support and love, and you deserve to be around people who are going to give it to you.
That’s what I’ve got. This is a pretty touchy issue so I’m sure people will make additional suggestions in the comments section …. go for it. Hug to you!
Second question … yoga for fertility?!
Hey Havi,
I know it’s ‘non sucky yoga month’ and even though you have thoroughly answered the question about yoga that doesn’t suck, is there any chance you could answer this question:
Is there any specific yoga practice that helps IVF / promotes fertility?
Cheers,
Jodie (a fan from Australia)
This seemed like a question that would require a little outside assistance so I asked Amelia Hirota aka The Fertility Acupuncturist — who happens to also be an internet-friend — if she could help me out.
Here’s Amelia:
Yes, yoga does promote fertility for two reasons.
One, it calms the mind and reduces stress. Easing the pressure on the adrenals (caused by chronic stress) is important in enhancing fertility.
Secondly, yoga promotes blood flow to the pelvic cavity, providing nourishment to the ovaries and uterine lining.
With a healthy diet, this increased blood flow to the reproductive organs often makes a huge difference in fertility levels.
I actually just reviewed a good yoga fertility book called Fully Fertile on my site.
In Fully Fertile, they talk about specific asanas (yoga postures) that are helpful during an IVF cycle. I like using yoga to enhance fertility because of the way it treats both the mind and the body.
Yay, Amelia! That was much more interesting than anything I would have said.
The only thing I’d add to that is that yoga poses all make use of internal and external pressure points on the skin and in the joints (marmas).
Every time you use the pressure of your own body to open or press on these points, you’re interacting with the nervous system which then sends messages to the brain to release hormones through the blood flow.
This is one of the reasons yoga often makes you feel like you’re on happy drugs … you’re gradually creating an altered (and ideally a more balanced) hormonal state.
Normally I talk more about this stuff in terms of how it can help facilitate your process of releasing emotional stucknesses, but there are absolutely physiological implications as well.
Either way, achieving hormonal (and emotional) balance could only help with your chances of getting pregnant if that were your goal. And with other, completely unrelated goals, if fertility is the last thing on your mind.
That’s all I’ve got …
Oh boy, I hope one of these answers (or questions) was vaguely related to something that interests you.
And if not, it was certainly sweet of you to come and hang out with me just because.
We’ll be back to slightly broader themes tomorrow. And anyway the Non-Sucky Yoga Month package thing goes away tomorrow which means I’ll stop with the yoga stuff for a while.
If you have an Ask Havi of your own, you’re more than welcome to ask, but keep in mind that it might not get published for a while. There’s a pretty serious line-up right now. Just saying.
Happy happy rest-of-the-weekend, guys.
Friday Check-in #13: the *spooky* edition
Because it’s Friday AGAIN. And because traditions are important. In which I cover the good stuff and the hard stuff in my week, trying for the non-preachy, non-annoying side of self-reflection.
And you get to join in if you feel like it.
Spooky halloween check-in
So our neighborhood is ridiculously halloween-obsessed.
To the point that pretty much everyone (except for us and the place I’m about to mention) is going mad trying to outdo each other by having more enormous glowing purple spiders on the roof than everyone else.
And then there is this one house with nothing. Just a tiny little wooden stick in the grass by a step that says … in sweet little letters:
*spooky*
Awesome. Okay, on to the week.
The hard stuff
Stupid transitions.
So the move is finally official — after two weeks of being on edge and not knowing.
Which is a good fantastic thing, of course. Because I am moving to the most perfect place in the entire world. Yes, I realize this is, at the core, happy news.
But all this in-betweenness brings with it all sorts of discomfiting layers of oof and aaaaaaargh. There’s the waiting. There’s the fact that — though perfect — it’s still a rental. One that might go back on the market in six months. Plus communication issues with the landlords.
And there’s me trying to stay organized and on top of things while knowing that soon everything will be different but I have no idea what that looks like yet.
And not liking the place where I am now. And trying to record audio while the neighbors are revving up their chainsaws and banging on their drumsets.
I know this really beautiful, wonderful thing is about to happen, and in the meantime meeting a lot of resistance to letting things be the way they are right now.
Just not being in the mood for stuff.
This could be winter hibernation mode, but man, I’m just not in the mood.
Usually I’m so full of crazy, brilliant ideas that I have to remind myself to stop. And what I want to do right now is just schnuggle in bed with a thousand blankets and a good novel.
So I’ve been doing a bit of that. Practicing doing it in the most guilt-free way possible. And at the same time I kinda miss the excitement.
It’s probably time for a mini-vacation. Especially with the move coming up. And of course I’m booked with clients through the first week in December.
And of course I’m not supposed to type that out loud because everyone reading this will hate me.
Not complaining about my good fortune. Just looking for the opening — the window — where I can take some serious time just for me. In the meantime, I’m finding pockets. Which are almost as good as windows.
And writing about time and my relationship to it.
The good stuff
I mentioned we got the house, right? We got the house! Happy happy house!
I cannot tell you how excited I am to have the rental agreement signed. Actually, much more excited about the prospect of having a huge, sunny, beautiful office.
Though I plan to spend most of my blogging time curled up in the window seat under the stained glass window on the stairs.
I’ve never really had my own workspace. Or, come to think of it, significant space for myself at all.
Only once, when for two years I rented my own apartment. It was tiny and in the second crappiest neighborhood in Tel Aviv. But it was beautiful and it was mine.
The “mine” part was so astoundingly great that for the first year I pretty much never left except to go to work. It was so freeing to just have space. Me-space.
And without having to be considerate of roommates or my husband (this was the place I moved to right when we were getting divorced). Knowing that every single thing in this place was there because I wanted it to be there.
Things have changed a lot since then.
I love living with my gentleman friend. I love living with my duck. And now my brother will be moving in with us as well, which is pretty much the best news ever as the rest of us are all crazy about him.
And one of the things I’m looking forward to the most is my big, wonderful office that doesn’t double as another space part of the time. A space just for me that I don’t have to share with anyone or anything.
Seriously I’m so happy I could burst into tears right this second.
One more thing. No. Two more things!
New mailing address!
If you’re the sort of person who sends me checks or fanmail or fansocks or whatnot please note that the Fluent Self has a brand new mailing address.
Though if you’re the type to send whatnot, and for whatever reason you absolutely must send hobo fingers, please send them to Jenny the Bloggess instead. She needs them more than I do.
Otherwise you can send whatever you’re sending to:
The Fluent Self
3527 NE 15th #220
Portland, OR 97212
Non-sucky Yoga Month is almost over!
Well, the month isn’t over, but the non-sucky yoga package thing goes away on Monday.
There were six left last I checked. If you want to do some non-sucky yoga with me, this is where you do it.
Or even if you don’t especially want to do non-sucky yoga but you want to have a happy, healthy back and be super-relaxed and feel generally good about life and know that the time you spend working is more productive and all that ….
Non-sucky yoga, baby. This blog is powered by it. Last chance.
That’s it for me ….
And yes yes yes, of course you can join in my Friday ritual right here in the comments bit if you feel like it and/or there’s something you just want to say out loud too.
Yeah? Anything hard and/or good (or *spooky*) that happened in your week?
And, as always have a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious weekend that is not too full of the *spooky*.
And a happy week to come.
Extremely unlikely productivity techniques
We talked Monday about how time management is kind of a waste of time and that it’s really all about examining your relationship to time and then finding ways to make that relationship work better.
Hmmm. Working on a relationship sounds kind of a lot of …. work. Which, I have to say, is not really all that appealing.
But it’s not like you and time need to go to couples counseling together. It’s not like you need to start spicing things up …. like opening the door to time while wearing only plastic wrap.
Though if you do end up doing that, you’ll have to tell us all about it. The public must know.
So. A few things that will help you improve your relationship with time …
1. Recognizing that it is a relationship.
Time is amorphous. It’s not this solid, dependable thing that always behaves a certain way, as Einstein kept pointing out.
Sometimes it goes quickly and sometimes interminably.
Sometimes you’re in the zone and everything works. Other times it’s more like you’re uh, shoveling shit against the tide (I’m channeling Richard Russo here).
*shakes fist at Richard Russo for not having a proper website to link to*
Either way, trying to whack time over the head in self-mastery mode just isn’t going to work. But neither is just letting time do its crazy flowing thing without being involved.
Remembering that you’re in a relationship with time brings you back to a point where you can take conscious, intentional steps to alter this relationship and improve it.
It brings you back to taking action. But not out of neediness. Out of love.
2. Relationships are about give and take.
Ebb and flow. Receiving and offering. Being strong and being vulnerable.
Sometimes you need to show up and make stuff happen. Sometimes you need to soften and let things run their course.
It’s not all about you and how you “manage” time. It’s about how you give yourself time to be in a conscious state of not-doing. Time and permission.
Sometimes it’s okay to be actively not-doing. In fact, every once in a while it’s even okay to just watch TV.
3. It’s not time out. It’s time on.
The time you take to not do is time you’re actually investing in building that healthier relationship with time. You’re working on that relationship.
And when you think about it all in terms of relationships, all your “productivity” techniques change. They have to.
4. The yoga of productivity.
Also known as: “Letting your productivity techniques get progressively more bizarre.”
Like I hinted at on Monday, yoga is actually a productivity technique. So are swimming and walking and riding your bike.
Because when you’re taking care of yourself, you get more done and you get it done better. Though I would argue that yoga is especially useful for improving productivity.
Because yoga is a practice of bringing conscious awareness to all of your patterns.
How you relate to yourself and to those around you. How you interact with your body, but also how you interact with things like space and time and love and money and the weather and everything else.
And because your relationship with your body is also a reflection of everything else you do.
As you become stronger in your body, you start to access more strengths in other parts of your life. As you become more flexible in your body, you get better at getting around roadblocks in other parts of your life.
So taking that half hour or an hour to do some yoga becomes much more than something you’re doing for your body or your physical health. It becomes more than something you’re doing to stay calm and focused.
It’s about your relationship to time and to your projects. And of course to yourself.
And the relationship, like all relationships, is about LOVE. And acknowledgment. And trust.
Big stuff.
5. Love it up!
Be kind to time. Don’t always be making demands on it. Don’t always be guilting yourself into filling it. Or using it in a meaningful way.
Take conscious pauses. Give it its space. Treat it with respect. Take away some shoulds. Take a nap. Read a book. And when you need to get in the zone, do the things that help you get there fastest.
5. There’s a moral to this story somewhere.
At least I hope there is.
Three farmers are hanging out discussing their pig feeding techniques, as farmers like to do.
The first brags that his technique is the best: he lets his pig root around under the apple tree and eat old apples that have fallen to the ground. The second one says that actually his technique is better. What he does is take a stick to knock down apples from the tree for the pig to feed on.
But the third farmer is able to completely out-do both of the others. What he does, he explains, is to pick up the pig and hold it up to the tree at apple level so the pig can eat apples to his heart’s content.
The first two farmers are appalled. Isn’t that unbelievably time-consuming?
The third farmer looks at them and says, “Yeah, but what’s time to a pig?”
Moral of the story: don’t let Jewish vegetarians tell jokes about pigs. They’ll ruin it! Every single time.
But also that the funniest thing you can ever say to to yourself when you’re stressing yourself out over time is “What’s time to a pig?”
I promise that it will make you feel better. That might even be my primary mindful time management technique on some days. Works like a charm.
I hope you’re not expecting a conclusion or anything.
Time is not something to manage. It’s something to relate to and learn from and love. It’s a relationship.
And like all relationships it needs some attention so that it can feed you and replenish you instead of draining you and exhausting you.
So love it up and journal about it and think about it and rest on it and sleep on it and do non-sucky yoga for it and dance with it and learn about it.
That’s my plan, at any rate.
Blogging therapy: What do I even say?
Number four in our series on how to take some of the scary out of blogging.
If you want to catch up, here you go:
Part 1. What if people are mean to me?
Part 2. What if I throw a party and no one shows up?
Part 3. Why even bother when there are already other people doing it better?
And today we’re talking about the whole omg I don’t know what to saaaaaaaaaay problem.
And I know I’ve said this every single time but it does bear repeating: what we’re really dealing with is the process of working on your “stuff”. So even if you’ve never had a blog and don’t plan to — or if you’re a total A-list superstar, there should be something for you in here.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaagh! I don’t know what to say!
Oh boy. We all know this problem. And yet, I’m kind of having the opposite one at the moment …
Yes, even though I’ve totally had this problem too, at the moment I have so much to say about this particular topic that I’m actually feeling a bit overwhelmed.
So, to avoid this morphing into a hundred different posts, I’m going to speak to a couple of specific questions I’ve been asked that relate to aspects of this problem … and (she types hopefully) come up with some useful points to consider.
Scenario 1: What if I the stuff I have to say isn’t interesting?
This is familiar stuff. Mostly fear of being judged and fear of being “found out”.
Because what if people figure out that you’re really not that great? Or — and maybe this is even worse — what if you discover that you’re really not that great?
I know. This feeling is awful. I’m sorry. Hug.
I’m not going to talk you out of it or tell you how great you are or anything. At the same time …
Things to think about …
Not interesting? To whom? So what?
There are what, six and half billion people on earth? If the tiniest sliver of a miniscule fraction of a percentage of those people find you interesting you’ll already have a ridiculously popular blog.
All you want to do is talk to your right people.
Your right people will never find you boring because they’re your right people. And they’re the ones you want to be talking to anyway!
Your writing is the best red velvet rope there is.
“Red velvet rope” is a Michael-Port-ism. It means that you want to welcome your “right people” in and keep everyone else out.
I’m sure lots of people find my blog dull as dirt. They couldn’t care less about self-work or biggification or non-icky self-promotion. They don’t even like my duck. (Don’t tell Selma though, because she might cry).
You know what? I don’t want those people here. And luckily, they don’t hang out here. Because the stuff I write about and how I write it is a big, fat, red velvet rope that says this stuff isn’t for them.
Anyone who doesn’t find your stuff interesting doesn’t need to be there.
Be yourself and it can’t be boring.
Yes, there are a ton of blogs out there that bore me to tears. But I’m 99% convinced that it’s not because the people who write them are boring.
I’m pretty sure that it’s actually because the people writing them are reining themselves in. Restraining themselves. Holding back from putting their true internal dialogue out there.
There’s something reserved or constrained. Some stuckification that’s keeping them from letting their inner goofball come out and play.
If you show up as YOURSELF it won’t be boring. It can’t be.
But even if I’m completely wrong and these people really are that boring, there’s still the “right people” thing. Maybe I’m just not their right people. And their right people will love them madly regardless. So either way, you’re good.
Scenario 2: I can’t talk about this stuff to total strangers.
Yes, blogging can get pretty personal. I’ve talked about the second worst summer of my life. About being poor and terrified and about falling apart completely over my friend who killed himself. About going back in time and healing my heart.
Is that hard? Absolutely.
And, as someone wrote in the comments to last weeks post:
I especially hesitate on issues of privacy. How much of myself do I want to expose to strangers? How much of my family?
Things to consider:
You don’t have to expose everything.
Start talking about stuff you’re comfortable with and gradually expand your comfort zone without having to leave it.
Set boundaries. (With yourself and with others)
You can make up nicknames for people. Or use initials. Or leave out certain bits.
Things will morph and shift and change anyway, but at least you’ll be interacting consciously with the process.
Maybe you want to agree with certain people in your life about which topics will be off-limits. Not everything needs to be shared.
Or whatever, you could go completely postmodern like the addictively great Black Hockey Jesus and have a blog that defies reality in all of its forms. He might or might not have a wife who might or might not have a hundred different names.
And is he just kidding about his four year old daughter’s fifteen year old phantasmagorical boyfriend? Is any of this happening at all? And does that matter?
Vulnerability and honesty are the highest currency online.
They’re also your protection against scenario #1. Trust me, you will not be boring if you’re talking truthfully about the stuff you really think about.
Being honest and vulnerable makes it easier for people to relate to you. It allows you to be human, which is the sexiest thing there is in the land of blog.
The biggest problem I see with blogs (yes, the boring ones!) is that the people writing them try to protect themselves by wrapping themselves up in Expertise. They talk down to me. They lecture me.
They give me lists and bullet points and concepts but there’s no one there to connect with. And it’s not the sexy kind of distance. It’s the lonely kind.
No one wants a flawless expert. We want empathy. We want to identify with you. We want to know that you understand our pain because you know it intimately and are moving through it. Well, that’s what I want.
You don’t need to be vulnerable in a “strategic” way (ew). You just want to let who you are shine a little brighter.
Bottom line: the more personality you show, the better. As Naomi says, show a little skin.
And given the fact that every time she writes about cowering under the covers in terror of failure she gets more clients, I think we could all use a bit more of that sort of thing.
Terrifying? Oh, absolutely. I’m feeling kinda nervous right this second telling you how nervous I sometimes get when I post.
But it’s honest. It’s a practice. A practice I get to do at my own pace in my own quiet, introverted way in my own room from behind a screen.
And — in a very weird, completely discomfiting and counter-intuitive way — it’s shockingly good for business.
In fact, ever since I realized I could just be myself on my blog and this is actually enough to support my entire business, I’ve dropped every single “marketing strategy” that I was either doing or — more likely — thinking I should be doing. But we can talk more about that some other time.
One last point.
This point actually works for just about any scenarios you could imagine. In fact, I could have probably skipped my other points and just made this one.
Because this is …. um, whatever you call the card that takes all in a really brutal game of poker. This is my ace of spades or something. I don’t know. You know. You’ll tell me.
Anyway. Here it is.
Blogging is nothing more than therapy you don’t have to pay for.
That’s it. Just think of it as the cheapest form of therapy known to man. It’s your own 50 minute hour with no one interrupting you!
Forget about all these people. Forget about your “target market” and “their needs” and all the stuff that the experts and biggifiers tell us we should be focusing on every second of the day.
Writing is healing. It will be healing for your right people when they read it. It will be their gift later. But right now — in the writing — it’s for you.
The rest is gravy.
Next week we’ll be talking about the other thing that keeps us from knowing what to say: perfectionism. Ahhhhh, perfectionism.
But this will do for now … and if not, I can work on my own perfectionism over the week and see what comes up. Or not. Either way I’ll probably be writing about it though.